Welcome to “Idiots Unite!”
Posted in Latest News by david at 12:46 pm
Reading the Billboard headlines these days, for many of us, is like reading a pre-death industry obituary. Sales are down (hell, it looks like iTunes, the digital savior, is even taking a dip right now). We find out that it is harder for bands to tour, making it harder for bands to be written about and discovered. Rent and gas and everything else is going up up up and meanwhile marketing costs, if anything, are on the rise as well. The music industry seems like an elephant-sized monkey breaking the backs of those who it should be inspiring and accepting: those who work with music because of the LOVE of music, who care and respect both the idiom and the artists who create the goodness.
Needless to say, I…a compulsive record man…reared by the last wave of those behind the classic music industry renaissance…I many times feel like and IDIOT. Why bother even following up on the music heard and seen at the random club on that random night…even if it produced goosebemps in the shape of Mount Rushmore’s Presidents? What is the point of engaging in this constantly morphing and black-lunged industry?
But there are some facts: 1. Artists more than often, need to have an outsider helping with the creation and marketing of their art. They need a business plan. 2. Any economist will tell you that the best time to invest in an industry is at its darkest and most uncertain hour 3. With the ability to follow trends with agility and forwardthinkingnes, it has been shown that certain models work in the short term and might even have a potential for survival in the long term.
Last year there was a dark moment where I felt like a complete idiot. It was between releasing one record that I thought was genius and another record that was coming out shortly after. The label was getting more known and some of the bands were growing, but there was this voice…that same voice present in The Rocking Horse Winner…the one that breathed the words NEED MORE MONEY…and it sat on my shoulder and bit my ears. Those words can be damaging…almost heartbreaking. But they also can be ass kicking…in a good way…and some of the ideas and goals I came up with in that time changed the way I do business and reinvigorated my industry drive.
This is not some kind of bullshit self help seminar. There are no clear answers or formulas for success. But part of my thought process was that, now more than ever, all of us idiots who cut and scrape around this sick beast called the music industry should unite with our ideas, motivations and frustrations. Discuss the environment and seek to discover a way out of our dessert to find a land of milk and honey. My personal answer was to seriously diversify my business model, while maintaining a roster of musicians that I love. Other people I have talked to have different ideas.
This will be the forum for discussion, a discussion led by mavericks who have decided to re-invent the paradigm instead of giving up or selling out (unless a form of selling out permits buying in as well). Thanks to South By Southwest, which is admittedly one of the biggest meeting places of industry minds in the world (the biggest in America for sure), the energy of the conference can be fueled into maybe the most important discussion needed to be had today: how to survive, thrive, and be happy working with the universally loved art form called music.
It seems that everyone is banging at the door but nobody is quite finding the key.
It is a moment in time which can be scary or exhilirating,What happens next will ultimately in all probability re-shape the music industry for years and everyone within it will be affected by the outcome. We are already seeing this process in motion by the mergers or attemptempted mergers going on with the major industry players as they scrabble to find a foothold in the avalanche of changing customer buying behaviour. Music itself is actually even more popular now and reaching a far wider audience through different mediums than it ever has been. However the old methods cant cope with the change taking place. If these methods of work cease to be of use then it is a case of inovate or die.
In a sense it reminds me of a story i heard recently from a different time and a different community but provides a classic example of what is required when systems fail.
In 1915, the Mexican boll weevil invaded southeast Alabama
and destroyed 60 percent of the cotton crop. In desperation, the farmers
turned to planting peanuts. By 1917 the peanut industry had become so
profitable that the county harvested more peanuts than any other county
in the nation. They now have the only monument in the world shaped
like a bug, (the boll weevil.) The monument reads… “In profound
appreciation of the boll weevil, and what it has done as the herald of
prosperity.”
The internet is todays boll weevil for the music industry and if it endeavours to continue as it is it will fail, or rather those who refuse to accept the cahange in conditions will collapse. It will be the innovators,the idiots,the mavericks,the fools who think outside the box who wil ultimately drive it forward to its new dimensions.
I myself have no part to play in the scheme of things other than my love of music and an interest in my sons band and one or two bands i would love to see succeed that i have met personally.
Myspace has to date been a major contributing factor whether it remains as such will depend on its continued direction. However through it bands have had the greatest opportunity to reach far outwith their normal boundaries at an early stage of development. That is fantastic news for artists who utilise the tool properly. They can reach fans in all areas of the world where they couldnt easily before,and they can get their music heard in ways that it couldnt have been heard before.
Admittedly tho, there are some who have failed to grasp one very important aspect in their mass charge to add friends. It is one factor which has to come into play with every good business. There is no point in adding millions of people to your calling list if you dont endeavour to strike up a good relationship with your prospective customers. Folk need to know that they matter and if they feel that they are not just another number in your book!
With new methods comes new responsibilities and particularly so if you want your music to be listened to. First you must listen to your customers and what they want, otherwise you are not where they are. If you dont really care what their needs are and are only interested in being a star or in your own ends, then no point being surprised if nobody wants to know.
I feel the major record companies have forgotten this important lesson and hence they are struggling to get in touch now.
On the band front I would hold up two examples( I am sure there are many more)
The Flaming Lips who have been successful through incredible hard work also come across as being very caring of their fans and endeavour to make them feel they are important thereby building a special relationship and affection which in turn feeds them!
afterchristmas on the other end of the scale are a band just setting out on that journey but what they do is something similar but on much smaller scale. They endeavour to always personally comment and reply to messages on myspace and do so by actually taking the time to read what people say on their page and reply accordingly. Not just some copy/paste standard response.
It is here in these areas,whether it be emerging artists,established acts,promoters,managers,record companies that the way forward is to be found. Folk need to work together,they need to care,they need to build relationships and partnerships. That way collectively it becomes a brave new world.
Or am i being too naive,and too much a fool?
Comment by Rod — February 27, 2007 @ 6:41 am